


Precautionary Action

by juniron



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Batfamily (DCU), Damian Wayne is Robin, Day 1, Delirium, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Drugs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Mentioned Alfred Pennyworth, Mentioned Barbara Gordon, Mentioned Bruce Wayne, Minor Injuries, No Romance, No Smut, Protective Batfamily (DCU), Protective Siblings, Sickfic, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26765317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniron/pseuds/juniron
Summary: “Isn’t this excessive?”“He’s gonna hurt himself. If anything, it’s a precaution”“Too fucking late for ‘precaution’, Replacement. My nose was already a victim.”-----Prompt: Waking Up Restrained
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950706
Comments: 4
Kudos: 348
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Precautionary Action

**Author's Note:**

> "What canon is this in?" you may ask. 
> 
> To which I will respond, "You know, I really don't know, nor do I care."

**Prompt: Waking Up Restrained** ~~**| Shackled | Hanging** ~~

A clatter resounded through the Batcave as Dick’s rebellious arm smashed into the IV pole next to him, sending it clattering unceremoniously to the ground.

“Damnit, Jason, hold him down!” Tim shouted as he pressed two fingers into the crook of Dick’s neck to count his pulse. He found it weak and fast under his touch.

“I’m trying, dumbass,” Jason spat back as he struggled to pin Dick to the gurney.

“Damian, go grab some ice and damp towels. We need to get his temp down,” Tim ordered. Damian immediately turned and ran to complete his task, not even objecting to receiving a demand from Tim for once.

After struggling under Jason’s weight, Dick went slack, huffing in exhaustion. Tim stood the IV pole back up and stuck the needle back into a vein on Dick’s hand. Damian returned moments later with a bag of ice from the freezer, a bowl of water, and a stack of towels.

“Wet those and put them around his neck and his face. Check on the injection site while you’re at it,” Tim said.

Jason maneuvered his way off of Dick and began helping Damian as Tim returned to his laptop. Oracle has sent him a schematic of what she’d deduced was in the drug so far. It was a start, not nearly enough information to determine an antidote.

“It’s bruising and red, but nothing out of the ordinary,” Damian relayed. He took some time to run his eyes over Dick’s body as he wiped the sweat away. His body shivered involuntarily, but he made no notion to the others that he was any closer to consciousness.

“This shit is getting out of control. We need to do something about it,” Jason scoffed under his breath, crossing his arms as he turned to Tim.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do, Jason?! Sit here and look cool while Dick’s been suffering?” The ‘I wish Bruce were here’ sat uncomfortably on the edge of his tongue. He knew they were going to have to handle this without him.

“Well, it’s been hours. And his fever has done nothing but rise and he’s done nothing but resist us and struggle. He doesn’t know we’re here!”

Damian sighed uncomfortably as he continued to wipe the aftermath of hours of fevered shaking off his oldest brother’s body. On a typical day, he’d have no reservations joining in with Jason to annoy the hell out of Tim. But today, Dick needed help, and that’s what mattered.

He was going to interject and attempt to save Tim from another angry accusation from Jason when Dick’s eyes shot open and he started lashing out and trying to sit up. Damian slid off the bed, frozen and at a loss of what to do. He’d been trained in hundreds of forms of murder, not what to do when your brother was trapped in his own foggy mind by a mystery drug.

Dick’s unseeing eyes flickered rapidly around the room as he struggled to get out of bed. Tim shot a look to Jason, who climbed back onto the gurney and was trying to control Dick’s arms. This didn’t go as planned, though, as Dick began to scream, struggling against Jason’s hold.

“Richard! Drake, what’s happening?” Damian exclaimed, tone demanding an answer.

“I-I don’t know, Dami. He’s…” Tim was quickly becoming overwhelmed by the situation. “God, what do I do? This isn’t working.”

Dick’s screams echoed through the cave as he attempted to escape, but Jason didn’t budge. That wasn’t until Dick managed to wrangle an arm free, his implicit memory kicking in, as he clocked Jason across the face.

“Fuck!” Jason shouted. Pain blossomed across his nose as blood dripped down his chin.

Tears were leaking down Dick’s flushed cheeks as he went limp again, previously tense body flopping back down onto the bed. Tim was running through different scenarios and solutions in his head, trying to minimize the damage Dick could accidentally cause to them or himself.

“We’re gonna have to tie him down,” Tim said in a low, serious tone.

Jason peered over the view of his hand attempting to stop the blood flowing from his nose and made eye contact with Damian before glancing back to Tim. His eyes wordlessly conveying his reluctant agreement. 

“Isn’t this excessive?”

“He’s gonna hurt himself. If anything, it’s a precaution”

“Too fucking late for ‘precaution’, Replacement. My nose was already a victim.”

—-

Dick’s eyes peeled open slowly, his eyelids feeling as if they were weighed down by the sandbags used on the tents at Haly’s circus. When they opened enough to let in light, he blearily looked around, trying to remember what was happening and where he was. Dick’s retinas reacted to the piercing cold light like a vampire to the sun; they burned like hell. Not only did his eyes sting, they were abnormally dry.

Blinking became a Herculean effort, but it was the only relief to the burn of the light. He went to reach up and rub them to try and alleviate the irritation, only to have his attempt be thwarted by something restricting his mobility. He let out a weak sigh, really not feeling up to the prospect of having to move in order to see what was stopping him from rubbing his goddamn eyes. 

Come to think of it… why did it feel like his motor functions had been doused in molasses?

Dick slowly mustered up the concentration to shift his head enough to see what was holding him down. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see, but once he saw it, his head clouded by confusion only grew foggier. His wrists were chaffed, red and irritated, bound down by… padded, cuffed restraints? 

Protege to the world’s greatest detective and he couldn’t figure out why he was strapped down to something. To be fair, though, all his senses felt muddy as all hell and nothing was really focusing in his still burning, dry eyes. 

_ C’mon, Grayson, think.  _

Either the criminals were kind enough to bust out the less painful bindings, or he wasn’t being actively kidnapped. Huh…

Dick continued to squint and twitch, pitifully attempting to make sense of his surroundings. Something was finally getting through his senses, though. It sounded like… a woodpecker? A harsh knocking seemed to be reverberating through his skull. No, not a knocking… a tapping?

_ A woodpecker? That makes no sense. Something’s up. _

Dick was determined to figure out what was happening. Throwing his head to the right, wincing at the pull from his stiff neck muscles, a shroud dark figure sat on a stool.

_ Not a woodpecker. Definitely not a woodpecker. A Red Robin. Tim. _

The tapping sound, Dick now realized, was Tim’s lanky fingers dancing across the keys of his laptop. His eyes, still dry and itchy, focused upwards and saw Tim’s face, obscured by long dark bangs but illuminated by the glow of the screen he was hyper fixated on.

Tim. Dick wanted to say. But it came out as a rough raspy “-m”

Tim’s head flicked up immediately, the blanket around his shoulders falling off and onto the ground. Bloodshot blue eyes met soft, watering ones as Tim tossed his laptop on a nearby table and launched himself haphazardly onto Dick. Grabbing at his older brother’s shoulders, Tim settled for a lame excuse for a hug.

“Thank god you’re finally awake. Well… lucid, I should say,” Tim breathed, pulling away.

What? Dick tried to ask, but was once again sabotaged by his dry throat, letting out a wince-worthy “wha-?”

Tim’s eyes widened and Dick was able to take in the younger’s pale, sunken face. Dark bags were under his eyes and his hair clearly greasy. He looked past Tim’s face, searching for the inevitable coffee mug somewhere in the room that was slowly coming into focus.

Concern fell over Dick like a wave, wanting to know why Tim looked like he hadn’t slept or showered in days.

“Shit. Let me get you a glass of water or something. We’ve been hydrating you with an IV so I just wanna run it by Alfred,” Tim said as he departed Dick’s field of vision all while completely derailing Dick’s train of thought.

Without something to focus back onto, Dick found his attention and consciousness slipping without his consent. His eyelids drooped with the temptation of sleep looming in his cloudy mind.

Dick was ripped from his half-presence in dreamland by the soft thud of footsteps. He winced again as he twisted his neck to try and locate the noise’s origin. 

Expecting Tim to have returned, Dick was very surprised to see Damian entering with a sizable red plastic cup with a striped bendy straw peeking over the rim.

Wordlessly, Damian padded over to the bed and held the cup near Dick’s face, a clear command to drink. Once he’d managed to get the straw in his mouth, Dick sipped the water like there was no tomorrow. 

Covalent bonds had never felt so good. He nearly managed the whole cup before Damian tugged it away. Dick, straw still trapped between his lips, was met with a small splash of water to the face.

“Sorry. Don’t want you puking everywhere,” Damian said as he placed the cup somewhere on the same table as Tim’s laptop.

“Thanks, Dami,” Dick managed to sigh.

“Two days, eleven hours, and approximately thirty-two minutes, Grayson.”

“What?”

“You’ve been incoherent or passed out for two and a half days”

“What the? How the hell did that happen!? Where’d Tim go?”

“I’m assuming you don’t remember patrol then. And Pennyworth is currently forcing Drake to take a bath and a nap because he has been stupid enough to keep himself up for basically two days straight monitoring you, surviving on granola bars and caffeine,” Damian stated with a hint of disappointment lacing his tone.

_ Oh, Tim… _ Dick internally sighed. _I need to start sneaking melatonin into Tim’s vitamin regimen._

“Anyways,” Damian continued “Father sent you, Drake, Todd, and I to investigate an anonymous tip in regards to an international drug import happening somewhere near Gotham Harbor. We did basic reconnaissance on the area and found a large group of heavily armed traders loading heavy duty crates into a fake Wayne Enterprises truck, likely to lower suspicion as to the cargo. Long story short, we dropped in and stopped them.”

“Well that doesn’t really explain why I’m tied down right now,” Dick interrupted with dry sarcasm but was quickly cut off by a different voice.

“Well, Dickface, you got shot”

Dick looked past Damian’s spiky black hair to see Jason leaning in the doorway, nose covered slightly by an ugly dark bruise that had clearly been healing.

“Todd, I was explaining the story!” Damian protested as Jason strode into the room and dragged Tim’s now abandoned stool over to his older and younger brother.

“Yeah well, long story short,” Jason parroted Damian’s previous words, “you got shot.”

“Huh?” Dick shifted again, searching his body for bullet wounds he might not have been able to feel due to painkillers or anesthetic.

“No bullets,” Jason let out a huff that sounded almost like a laugh as Dick stopped scanning for nonexistent bullet wounds.

“The traders were trafficking a bunch of experimental hallucinogenic, immune response-enduring drugs. Father believes they’re attempting to weapon use them,” Damian interjected.

“Where is Bruce?” Dick asked, suddenly realizing the absence of their father.

“Old man’s out trying to find the guys that these bozos were workin’ with,” Jason answered shortly, “he’ll be back in a few days.”

“Anyways, as I was saying before I was interrupted… the dealers were trafficking these drugs. One of them shot you with an injector dart full of it, but because the drugs were experimental, all the doses in the truck were different and we weren’t quite sure what was in your system. You blacked out nearly on the spot,” Damian continued, "and s-”

“And so we contacted Oracle to get the GCPD down to deal with the traffickers and brought you back to the cave. Jason brought a crate of the drugs so Babs and I could start working on identifying the drug’s properties and reverse engineering a counteractive substance,” Tim had reentered, hair sopping wet from his shower, eyes still dead tired. 

“I thought you were supposed to be taking a nap. You need to sleep, Timmers,” Dick chastised as Tim lazily waved him off.

“I’ll worry about it later. At least I don’t smell like sweat and sixteen hours of detective work anymore”

“You’re pathetic, Drake,” Damian spat,” and you interrupted my explanation!”

“Sucks to suck, short stack,” Jason smirked.

“Someday, Todd… you will pay for every half-assed short joke you’ve made about me. And mark my words, you will regret it.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve died once already. What are you gonna do? Call me when you’ve hit five foot” 

Dick smiled at the banter, relieved to have all his brothers in one room not all tearing at each other’s throats (Jason’s half-baked short jokes and Damian’s typical insults aside). 

“Is that why my neck feels stiffer than a stale Pop Tart?” Dick asked as he attempted to roll his head around, grimacing at the sharp pain.

“Probably. Needle was huge. Also, a Pop Tart? Seriously?” Tim sighed.

“I’m hungry! I’m sorry, but I can’t help it,” he replied earnestly.

“Come, Todd. Let’s find Pennyworth and have him help us prepare a meal for Grayson, considering he’s too incapable to get up and get his own at the moment,” Damian ordered as he hopped off the bed, glancing back at Jason expectedly.

“Dinosaur chicken nuggets or PBJ with the crusts cut off, please,” Dick requested childishly.

“Wow, Goldie. Crusts cut off? No wonder you can’t hold down a relationship. You have the tastes of a toddler,” Jason rolled his eyes as he followed Damian out of the room.

That left Dick alone with Tim (and the avalanche of words that had just come out of everyone’s mouths still consolidating messily in his head). Dick sighed contentedly to nobody in particular as Tim grabbed his laptop again.

“D’ya mind taking these off? I’ve been wanting to scratch my eyes for like the past twenty minutes,” Dick stated as he lamely used his confined hands to gesture to the restraints.

“Umm, sure. We might have to put them back on when you go to sleep again, though,” Tim said as he began undoing the straps on Dick’s wrists, cringing at the irritated skin, rubbed raw from a struggle Dick was unaware he’d fought. 

“I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me”

“I-“ Tim started, “You don’t need to know about it. You’re awake and lucid and that’s what matters.”

“Tim,” Dick attempted, adding some interrogative Big Brother tone to his words. He sat up straighter attempting to assert himself, wanting an answer out of his younger brother.

“It was just… scary” Tim felt pretty pathetic admitting. “We’re trained for this kind of shit, things go sideways all the time, but I can’t help but be terrified at the thought you might’ve been seriously messed up.”

“From what I’ve gathered from everything is that I was drugged”

“Well, yeah, but God, Dick. At first we thought it was just a sister concoction to Scarecrow’s fear toxin, but you were running a fever of over 104 for hours, screaming, thrashing around, and it was just… not something I’d like to relive anytime in the next few weeks.”

“I’ll give you a seven day grace period tops. No promises after that, Timmy.”

“Yeah, okay. Babs and I were able to get a cure into your system. She’ll be by in a few hours to check up on all of us and make sure we haven’t driven Alfred insane or accidentally killed each other. I just wish I’d worked out the cure faster.”

“Tim, did your best. And hey, I’m still in one piece. Kinda achy, really hungry, but still in one piece. So, let’s just take a night to chill. No patrol, no cases, just you and me,” Dick consoles as he moved his hand to grip Tim’s.

“And Demon Spawn and Jason. Also, shut up. You’re not supposed to be comforting me, Mr. Hallucinogenic Victim,” Tim sighed with a light smile, allowing himself a bit of levity. 

The fraternal moment was interrupted by an audible growl from Dick’s stomach.

“Jesus, you keep a lion in there?” Tim asked.

“Nope. Just a few congested crocodiles. Haven’t had to store a lion in a few years,” Dick joked. Tim rolled his eyes at the pitiful joke.

“The toxin must’ve cleaned out the shred of decent humor you had up there.”

“Timothy, I am scarred by your words,” Dick feigned hurt as he dramatically frowned.

Both Dick and Tim glanced to the doorway after hearing footsteps and saw Jason and Damian had returned, plates in hand.

“I’d give your feeble attempts at humor a six out of ten on an average day. But that, Grayson, was a two at most,” Damian scoffed as he set down a platter of dinosaur chicken nuggets in front of his oldest brother.

“Holy shit, we actually had these? I was kind of joking,” Dick said with a small amount of disbelief as he picked one up.

“Would you prefer we not feed you? Just wish I would’ve known that before I wasted energy pressing the buttons on the microwave to warm these up for you,” Jason retorted sarcastically.

“No, don’t take my stegosauruses!”

“Good, then shut up and eat.”

  
  
  



End file.
